It's a scary notion of handing all your data over to a third party without any certainty that you will be able to access it when you want to (or that other will never be able to access it).

"Our requirements are very clear: Cloud providers have to be able to deliver at least equivalent to enterprise IT security," said Deutsche Bank AG Chief Scientist Andrew Stokes, "Without that, we can't even start. That's a critical requirement."

The one thing that enterprise IT security delivers that the cloud is missing is transparency. Enterprises contemplating making that leap to the cloud want to know exactly how the provider will secure the data and, if there is an issue, how the company will react to make sure it is safe.

The problem is that the technology is still relatively new, and with so many companies rushing to cash in on the cloud trend, there may not be the battle-tested security protocol in place that enterprise security has.

But, if you remember, enterprise security didn't exactly show up on the day PCs started to appear in the workplace. It's gone through years of growing pains (and it still could be better), something the cloud is also going to have to go through.

And with the advent of organizations like the Cloud Security Alliance, offering a public cloud that comes with ease of mind and an air-tight comprehensive security plan may be just around the corner.

How would you rate the current level of security with public clouds? Let me know at cpaoli@1105media.com or in the comments below.